racism

This poem arose from racial violence incited by Donald Trump during his presidential campaign. The fervor with which individuals responded to his stoking the fires of white supremacy reminded me of a period in my childhood when the KKK was a neighborhood player. My family was not exempt from their profiling and terror tactics. In Case of Fire (for Donald Trump) White sheets march off the laundry line at sunset Your mother across the alley of our yards twists shut her blinds. Her thin fingers do not shake like my

I drafted this with the horror of the election season in mind, but then came #PulseOrlando. I want to expand my thoughts to cover my love of the LGBTQIA community and my intersectionality with the Arab and Muslim communities. I can’t find the energy. I don’t know how. So I am leaving this note to say those inclusions should be here in a much larger way, but for now, this is what I’m capable of sharing. This and love. Love is love is love. I believe hate comes from fear,

On the day I dared myself to speak in fourth grade my apple was taken from the class tree I was given a corner to sit in and a letter for my mother detailing my excesses and failures. Mrs. Eaton did not recognize the fear coloring my voice my legs shaking beneath the desktop the sweat on my palm when I raised my hand or the hope she would see past the olive to something other than a stony core. Later, my mother dried my palm with her own as

I have a difficult relationship with Memorial Day. On the one hand, I have family and friends that were veterans of the United States military. On the other, I have family and friends that were targeted by the United States military. On that first hand, I have family and friends who regret being part of the military even while they commemorate their brotherhood with those who served beside them. On the other, I have family and friends who would not be joyful and free in their lives without U.S. military

When I was 16, I started letting people believe that I was white. In 1996, my family relocated upward from the Bible Belt. We moved from the southwest corner of Arkansas to the Midwest. At sixteen, I experienced a new definition of self — which, for me, meant shedding my ethnic heritage and the abuse that came with it. My coming of age was more than an exit from youthful innocence. It was an escape. Read more of “Why I Passed For White” in Medium’s The Archipelago.

Hey guess what. I’m gonna dream out loud and if you don’t like the sound you can stuff those sausage fingers in your ears and roll. I’m something. You said otherwise. I’m something. I am. I am. I will be. You had a meaty mouth and big ideas, but I was a skinny little girl near the mile marker of a hot asphalt trail up in rich land where the white people grew poison-free tomatoes in their back yards and venomous grass out front I used to sprint past

Shawna Ayoub Ainslie

Shawna Ayoub Ainslie is a coach, writer and creator of online safe spaces for artists engaging issues of survivorship and social justice. The Honeyed Quill is her writing home. Find her here or facilitating #LinkYourLife every Friday on Twitter, and #LinkYourLife Connection, an artist support forum on Facebook.